Reversing Autoimmunity using Naturopathic Medicine – with Dr. Nicole Fujiyama

Hi and welcome everyone. I am excited to introduce you today to Dr. Nicole Fujiyama. She's a naturopathic physician and attended Bastyr University, just like me. And so she and I are going to get to have a fun conversation about autoimmunity today. What is it? How to find out if you have it, and how to think about being able to reverse autoimmunity using naturopathic medicine. So thank you so much for joining me today, Nicole. I'm so glad to, to have this conversation together.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

Oh, you're welcome. I mean, tell us a little more about you first. How did you. What inspired you to become a naturopathic doctor and go to Bastyr and do what you do with helping patients with autoimmunity?

Yeah, it's kind of an interesting story. I always wanted to be a doctor and I was actually going the allopathic route and I'm from Hawaii, so I was actually in the process of interviewing for MD school and this lady came in to where I was working. I was working retail at the time, this totally tied eyed out lady. And I was telling her about like, I want to be a doctor. And she was like, oh, you should check out Bastyr. And I was like, is that an online school? I don't know what that is. And I had no idea what naturopathic medicine was, but she was kind of telling me about it. I was like, yeah, okay, whatever. She gave me her card and I just forgot about it. And then like a couple months later, I remembered her and I remembered her card and I remember Bastyr. I looked it up and I was like, oh my gosh, this is everything I want to do because I wanted to go into alternative complementary medicine anyway as an md And I was like, oh my gosh, what am I doing? So right then I applied to Bastyr and then it was, yeah, from there I just started this journey. Wow.

Oh, I love it. That's awesome. I know, it's for me as well. It's one of those moments where you all in your mind, all of a sudden your mind puts it together and you're like, yes, this is what I was looking for. So that's so great. And now I think you live and practice in California, is that right?

Yes. So I'm in Southern California, in Torrance.

Ah, very good. And I know you also help people with other health issues, but I know, especially when I, when I'm seeing you on Instagram, that a lot of what you've been sharing is about autoimmunity and how to help people understand it and think about it and heal even autoimmunity. So tell us more, what is that about? What's pulling you toward autoimmunity?

Yeah, well, I actually have issues with my thyroid. So I have Hashimoto's. I have family members who had antibodies and were diagnosed with lupus, but it wasn't lupus. Like they didn't know what to do. I had other family members too diagnosed with thyroid antibodies and Hashimoto's rheumatoid arthritis trend. And I didn't know what to do. And I was looking up stuff their doctors didn't know what to do. And I was like, this is crazy. How can we have these diseases and not know what to do? So it kind of sent me on like my own research and like doing my own studying about what to do for myself and then also for my family. And that's kind of how it started. And then from there it's just like now it's just become my, like my mission and like my passion, you know, because there's just so much misinformation out there and there's just not enough information out there about autoimmune diseases.

No, it's so true. And I'm with you. Yeah, my have a family history also of autoimmunity. My mom has Hashimoto and my father has Crohn's disease. And so it's been always in my awareness. I know in my genetics too, I have a lot of predisposition for sure to autoimmunity. And so it is one of those things where we also, I think, see in practice a lot of times as naturopathic doctors, people come and want help. Because in the conventional model for autoimmunity, there's really not that many options. I mean there are options that are usually going to be anti inflammatory or in some way. Like with the thyroid, it's a matter of trying to block the antibodies from damaging the thyroid. Or say with other forms of autoimmunity like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, it's about using medications that try to block the immune system and block the autoimmunity. But the problem is that they sometimes only work temporarily and they have a lot of side effects and they do actually take the body back to a non autoimmune state. It's just trying to turn off the autoimmunity for a period of time. And so I think, and I'm sure you hear from a lot of People too thinking, hey, wait a minute, is there something else I can do? Even if it's alongside the conventional medicines, is there something else I can do to prevent the damage from autoimmunity or to even potentially turn off the autoimmunity? And it's, it's one of the most rewarding things I think we get to do as naturopathic doctors. Right. Is help people, guide, guide them in how they can help their own bodies heal.

For sure. Like, and that's why I just love this medicine, you know, and especially when it comes to autoimmunity because you're totally spot on. You know, a lot of times I see a lot of Hashimoto, Hashimoto's patients, you know, and they're only offered like thyroid hormones a lot of times and that's it, you know, and under the assumption that what's actually the problem is your thyroid and it's not, you know. So a lot of times they're getting worse and they're like, I don't understand, like how I don't understand what's going on, like, why am I not getting better? I'm doing what they're telling me to do and this is just not helping. And you know, we can come in and basically help them every place else and get to actual the root cause which is their immune system. And there's so many things that we can do and it's just awesome.

Yeah, I love is, it's exciting for us and then to be able to, yeah. Be able to empower patients. So we want to talk more about that today, about what you can do if you have Hashimoto's or another autoimmune condition. But first let's just touch on in case a person might be wondering, you know, do I have autoimmunity? What are, what are some of the common symptoms that people report when they're.

Wondering, might I have an autoimmune condition of some type?

For sure. So usually when it starts it tends to be very general symptoms, which is kind of the tricky part when it comes to autoimmune diseases because a lot of times it tends to be like fatigue, just random joint pain. With thyroid Hashimoto's they could have a sore throat or start getting a raspy voice. They have like low grade fevers, it's just really general. Like their stomach is sore, they get acid reflux, it can be very general. So a lot of times I think that's why they don't catch autoimmune disease until later on because initially the symptoms tend to be very general. Like immune type symptoms.

Yeah. Or even just feeling more tired than usual. Right. Just like, I'm more tired. Maybe hard to lose weight or more achy, like, joint pains and achy muscles. You're just like. You know, you might find yourself asking, like, what is going on in my body? Something just feels off. And that's the thing, too, is that it. Sometimes when it's starting off, it is more on the mild side. And so it might not even meet the criteria yet of an autoimmune disease. It may just be a tendency toward autoimmunity at first. And so you might. You know, a lot of times the doctors might not even do any tests or diagnose it. You might be, hopefully. Actually, I always feel like that's better to catch it early before it really flares up and it qualifies as a condition, you know? Yes. Even once it qualifies as a disease diagnosis, we can still help. But if you catch it early. That's right. That's even better. Then it's even easier to get it to turn back off again.

Oh, yeah, totally. Like, if you can catch it in those beginning stages, like, say you just have antibodies and you have those kind of general immune or, I'm sorry, general symptoms like fatigue and stuff and joint pain, for sure, that is, like, the best time to do it, because you have zero or very little tissue damage or organ damage. And so your prognosis is just usually a lot better as opposed to getting diagnosed with an actual autoimmune disease, because by then, it's like you already have some kind of tissue or organ damage, so there's a lot more going on.

Mm.

And I think sometimes people feel frustrated because you might have, like, been to the endocrinologist or the rheumatologist, and they might say, oh, I see a little bit of autoimmunity, but just come back and recheck. And so you might feel frustrated as a patient, like, wait a minute, I want to do something. And we're saying that's actually a really good time to do something, because you can. There's a lot you can do to prevent it from getting worse Right. At that stage. And even then, even if it has already become a health issue, there's a lot we can do. It's just we also have to then manage the inflammation and the damage and the side effects at the same time. So let's see. So what are some of the common tests like? Usually, if you're wondering about autoimmunity, and you might say to your primary care doctor, can I. I'm wondering about autoimmunity. Can I do a test? A stage? There is a classic test called the ana, or autoimmune Antibody Panel. But the thing that's important to understand is there's, I don't know, hundreds, if not thousands of different antibodies. Right. So you can't.

Yeah.

You really can't test for all of the possible autoantibodies. We can do this one general test called the ANA that gives us a possible peek at whether there's some degree of autoimmunity. But again, you might have a mild level and it might not even show on the ana. Including with Hashimoto's, we would test for specific thyroid antibodies called the TPO and ata. And you can tell us more about that, Nicole, and what you suggest. But it's important to just know that you would think, oh, there's going to be a perfect test that's going to tell me about autoimmunity. But there's not really. It's a little bit more complex than that. Tell us your impression on the testing.

Yeah, no, for sure. I hear this a lot from patients, too. They can get very frustrated about that because their doctor would do like an A and A, and they're like, it showed nothing. But I still feel like crap. You know, what I tell patients is you have to kind of go on what their symptoms are having, and then we can kind of more tailor those antibodies that we test to that so we can start ruling out maybe more specific autoimmune diseases. And so that kind of. It kind of narrows that feel down, because you're right. You can have any amount of antibodies to really anything. And so it makes it really hard to really just focus on a few or a handful that you think is pertinent to their kind of what's going on with them. But there's also. I also use a lot of. What is. Oh, my gosh. What is that lab?

Yes.

Oh, my gosh.

Thank you.

Yeah, I like using them. So they have, like, that broad autoimmune panel. So for some patients who are just like, I don't know, or they want to just find out if they have other autoimmunities, because that's also really common, then I'll usually suggest that for them as well. But that can put in a lot of. Or give them a lot of insight to just kind of one step beyond, like, the basic lab tests.

Yeah. Because it's like what you're saying, like, in a standard lab let's say Quest or LabCorp, they can do an ANA and insurance should cover it. And then what we'll do is it'll say ANA with reflex, which means if they see even a tendency toward autoimmunity, they can reflex and tell us a little bit more about what type of antibodies they see, but it's still pretty non specific. And then if we want to know like more specifically, like, are there thyroid antibodies? We can ask for that on a regular lab and insurance should cover that. But if we want to know like, or if we want to know about rheumatoid arthritis, we can do a rheumatoid factor test. But other types of autoimmunity, because there's so many, right? There's, I mean, there's the classics. We think of like Hashimoto's for celiac disease, which is autoimmunity, if related to gluten against the intestinal lining. We can do the like, TTG and anti gliadin antibodies. So some of them have some specific antibodies. But like what you're saying, if you're, if you're coming in with general symptoms and you just don't really know what type of antibody might be present, then you'd have to test a whole lot. But like this company called Cyrex, which it has out of pocket, so I don't think that's going to get covered by insurance. But sometimes it's worth it to spend a few hundred dollars and they can test for like, I don't know, hundred different antibodies and it can give you a sense of, hey, do you have antibodies anywhere in your body? Because that's the thing is our immune system could decide to with autoimmunity. It's really our immune system's confused and trying to protect us from ourselves. And it could try to protect you from any part of your body, from your thyroid to your intestines, through your joints to skin, to your blood vessels, right to anywhere. So they can test for a bunch of different antibodies. But even then it just gives you a sense of a more specific sense that, hey, there's some autoimmunity happening in my body, which is what you and I as the naturopathic doctors, that's all we really need to know. We don't treat necessarily to the specific location that the antibody is attacking other than the thyroid. We might, but for the most part, we just need to know if there's any degree of autoimmunity anywhere, even. Even if it's autoimmunity to the nervous system. We're going to come at it from a similar approach, would you say no?

Totally, for sure. That's why I tell people, they come to me and they're like, have you treated this autoimmune disease before or this autoimmune disease before?

For me, I'm like, well, it doesn't really matter because I'm treating your immune system and your body as a whole. So that's really where we're starting and what we're looking at. And you can help, you can definitely help any autoimmune disease by just looking at those foundations.

Yeah.

And that's the key is to reversing autoimmunity is by addressing these underlying causes. So let's look at that some more because these are the things that aren't usually going to get tested in the regular standard care when they're probably not going to get covered by insurance. But if your goal is to be able to heal your body, you're going to want this information. So you're going to want to think, hey, what tests do I need to do to help. Help me understand the root cause, which is different than just identifying the antibodies. Right. We want to actually think through what caused your immune system to start to get confused and attack your own cells. And to some degree, there's genetics involved. Right. We talked about how there can be genetic tendencies, but even then, I mean, just because you have a gene doesn't mean you're definitely going to get autoimmunity. Like in my case, I have the genes, but I don't have autoimmunity. So it's really a matter of our lifestyle, our environment. I think of it as our stress exposure. Right. It's our exposures to emotional stresses, physical stresses, toxins as stresses, these things that are a stress that cause the genes to activate and start causing autoimmunity. Tell me your impression on that. How you explain that?

Yeah, no, totally. I agree with everything you said.

How I also look at it too, is inflammation. So, like, a lot of those things cause inflammation, and for me, like, inflammation drives that whole autoimmunity train, you know, So a lot of it, in finding those root causes and triggers is to help calm that inflammation down, which then helps calm the immune system down.

Yeah, that's such a great. It's so true. And I think sometimes inflammation is kind of hard to grasp as a concept because, I mean, a lot of times we think of inflammation as like if we.

If we.

I always say if you stub your toe and it's red and throbbing, that's inflammation in your toe, but it's hard to sometimes get a sense of having inflammation somewhere in your body or in your nervous system. Right. It's like, what is this inflammation stuff? But I like how you're really explaining that it's when we have that inflammatory state in our bodies that it kind of. It's almost like pushing the immune system to the max. Right. It's like the immune system just at this high inflammatory max for a certain period of time. It just then pushes it into an autoimmune pattern.

Yeah, No, I like the way. Yeah, I guess I should have differentiated that a little bit better, but, yeah, like, the difference between acute inflammation versus chronic and definitely when it comes to, like, autoimmune, we're in that chronic inflammatory state.

Yes.

Yeah. So it's like your body, I mean, your immune system is just constantly, constantly on. It doesn't have time to stop. You know, and when you're in that constant inflammatory, like, just state as just who you are, who your immune system sees you as, then, you know, things that should be calming your immune system down just don't have the opportunity to do that. So when you find those root causes, you start taking away those things that, you know, cause this ongoing inflammatory system and gives your body a chance to just calm down.

Let's talk through. What are some of the common ones you see in your patients? What are some of those common kind of instigators of inflammation?

Yeah, well, I think one of the main ones is food, for sure. Inflammatory foods. Just because our diet and just the foods that we are exposed to can be very inflammatory.

Yeah.

And I saw you were posting about gluten, and it's such a common, I think, trigger for autoimmunity. And I love how you're always pointing at the research, too, because these are. It's easy to kind of say, oh, gluten is an issue. But when we look at the research, we can really see, oh, my gosh, gluten is an issue not just for one reason and not just for two reasons, but for numerous reasons. It can be very inflammatory to our bodies. So talk us through that a little bit more.

Yeah, no, for sure. Honestly, it's like the worst. The more research I do on it, and that's exactly the reason why I put the research. It's because I've had people tell me, like, oh, you're just saying it because gluten is like a fad. It's a trend. It's like an LA thing. I'm like, no, there's actually a lot of research on it. Yeah. And it's showing that because a lot of this connected with celiac, which makes sense. But they're coming out a lot now with this non celiac gluten sensitivity and even finding inflammation in people who have either. It's still causing their immune system to react, which is crazy. So it's just inflaming people. It's inflaming everyone, really.

Yeah. And it's. This is the thing is, in the United States, we don't realize that they increase the gluten content of food so much. Like, I think sometimes it's tenfold or more. And so you're having just regular piece of bread or pastry or something, and it ends up having 10 times as much gluten as, say, maybe another country or somewhere else, or potentially how they could make that bread. In the past, we're getting so much higher exposure to gluten, I always say, plus, it's easy to get gluten at every meal. Next thing you know, you're having bread for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch and pasta at dinner, and then you're having cookies or cake. You know, like, every single meal, there can be gluten exposure. And so it's just this high, bombarding the body with this particular. Really, it's a protein that humans don't digest well. So we are bombarding ourselves with this, all humans. And when we think about it, I think that it could be really different if we even just had a gluten. Much less often, you're not going to have most foods we don't eat every single meal every day. We usually rotate through to different things. And it's when we have that high exposure that I think it's really started to be more and more of an issue, whether it's, like you said, whether it's actually causing celiac disease or gluten sensitivity or just being inflammatory, because we know that gluten, it turns on zonulin, which opens up the spaces between the intestinal cells. So it's literally causing leaky gut. It's opening up the space between the cells so more substances can get through the intestinal wall into our bodies, which is where the immune system is waiting to protect us. Now the immune system is literally getting bombarded with gluten and other substances that are coming through these spaces between our intestinal cells. Then we know that gluten also disrupts the gut bacteria, and we can talk more about how disrupted gut bacteria relates to autoimmunity. So we we know that it's causing leaky gut, we know it's disrupting our gut bacteria, we know it's causing inflammation. It's like, it makes sense. Okay. No wonder they've connected it with so many different types of autoimmunity.

Yeah, that's just like the recipe for autoimmunity right there, right?

It is, right? I think sometimes people might be surprised that we're thinking about the gut health. Right? We're like, but for us, right, as naturopathic doctors, if we hear autoimmunity, we right away start thinking about gut health.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, to me it makes sense because, you know, like you said, the majority of our immune systems in our gut, you know, so if you're having an immune system issue, which is what autoimmune disease is, want to look at the source, which, the first place I'm going to look is your gut.

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Exactly. And no matter if the autoimmunity could.

Be totally different part of your body, but it started from autoimmunity related to what's happening in your digestion. And even if, even if you don't have any digestive symptoms. Right. Like a lot of patients, I'll be talking to them about autoimmunity and I'll.

Say, you know, you may or may.

Not have any digestive troubles, although a.

Lot of times then they say, well.

Actually I have had some trouble with.

My digestion, maybe a little bloating, maybe a little irregular bowel movements, maybe, you know, some, you know, heartburn, or even another one that isn't really part of.

Our digestion, but we forget about is our mouth Right. Like, sometimes people are having issues in.

Their mouth, their dent, their gum health.

And their dental health. And that's part of the digestion where there's inflammation anywhere along it can.

Push toward autoimmunity. Right.

For sure, you don't need to have GI symptoms or gut symptoms in order to have an autoimmune disease, but you can still have gut issues that are causing those autoimmune disease. And I think a lot of people forget, like, with celiac, it's not actually a gut autoimmune disease. It actually attacks your brain, like, that's its main target, really. So people who have celiac, I mean, a lot of them do because it just destroys your gut, but a lot of them have brain issues, and that is a big target for celiac. So I think it's a good reminder for people that you don't have to have gut symptoms, but your gut can still be wrecked and still have an autoimmune disease.

Yeah, so true. I think I saw a study like you were mentioning that a greater percentage of the symptoms associated with celiac disease are in the neurological symptoms system than the digestive symptom system. And I think it's something like 50% of people with celiac disease don't have any digestive symptoms. So it's really. You have to kind of like, think twice and be like, hey, it might not show up as some of these things I was just mentioning, you might think, oh, my stomach feels fine. And so this is why it's like, for us when we start wanting to do testing to understand the root causes, we're still going to do tests that help us understand what's going on in your gut. I'm assuming you probably also like to do food sensitivity panels so we can find out for sure. Like, we can look for gluten as a food sensitivity, but we can look for other food issues. Which foods are inflammatory to your body, because we know what are some of the common generally inflammatory foods. But it's much better if we can identify what are the inflammatory foods specifically for your body. So you know which foods to watch out for while we heal your gut. So we can do food sensitivities testing, and then we can also do stool testing. Right. To understand better how well you're digesting food and the state of your. The population of bacteria and other microbes in your gut.

Yeah.

No, I'm so happy you're, like, bringing up all these topics that I hear from patients that are like, why are we doing this? Why do we need to do this and like food. Yeah. The food testing is one of them, because I usually tell patients, look, we can do like a. A diet diary and elimination challenge, which is the gold standard. We can do that for months, or we can just get a test and we can figure out right away what foods are bothering you. And usually they have foods up there that we would have never thought of that is causing this immune reaction, and then plus those foods have cross reactions with other foods, and we would have never found out from an elimination challenge diet. So it's just worth it. I always tell patients, I'm like, just do it. Just get it.

It's so true.

Because it's.

It's just so much faster, too, and clearer. And it's like you're saying these food reactions are delayed a lot of times. And so by the time you try to track it in your own diet, you can't, because the reaction might be two weeks after you ate the food. And it's just so complicated. You give up. And we don't want you to give up. We want you to just know to do that so we can just see. And then it's just such a good shortcut to figuring it out. And again, it's not about just trying to eliminate a bunch of foods from your diet, because that's the thing is sometimes people who are addressing autoimmunity can get very restricted in their diet. And so we don't want to just randomly restrict foods. We want to just restrict the ones that are most inflammatory. Right. And then work on healing your gut so that your immune system is no longer reacting to these foods anymore. You know, that's really the goal. So you can be able to eventually broaden your diet a bit again in the future.

Totally. That's definitely an area, too. I see a lot. It's just people coming with such restrictive diets, like they're on the AIP and things like that. And sometimes the aip, it's good. It's a good place to start. But sometimes they don't need to be that restrictive because they're not reacting to those foods. So they can actually leave them in. And you find that out when you do these tests. You're like, oh, I can actually eat beans. Like, it's okay.

Yeah. Or some certain nuts. Because a lot of times on AIP is avoiding all nuts. But if you don't react to certain nuts, then you may not have to avoid them all. And that can be right. It's just such a lifesaver sometimes to be able to have some different protein options. And even if it does turn out that you are reacting to, let's say, beans and nuts, then we know, okay, your leaky gut is really severe. Now that's helpful information. Let's really focus on healing this leaky gut and get those nut and bean reactions to calm down. It's just trying to protect you, right? It's just a protection mechanism.

Yeah, that's such a good point. That's like another thing you can find out from these labs is do you just have a food thing or do you have, like a leaky gut and your gut is just like, you're just reacting to everything. That's like, totally different then.

And to know that it can heal, I mean, that's the thing. Our bodies make new cells all the time, every day, including in our intestinal lining. So if we can remove what's causing the leaky gut and give your body what it needs to heal and make new healthy cells again, you can actually get ahead of this.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, the body's amazing. Like, you know, if you remove the stuff that's giving it issues and you give it stuff it needs to heal, like. Like your body's gonna heal. That's what it wants to do. That's what it's trying to do. That's why it's kind of. It sounds kind of backwards. You know, with autoimmunity, it's actually trying to protect you, but it's just doing it in a really messed up way. It's trying to heal you too.

Yeah, it's just got overwhelmed and confused and it's. And I think that, yeah, I love that your body wants to heal it just to have some help. It needs to take away what keeps causing it. And I loved another one of your posts where you talked about some of the common things we get exposed to. Otherwise, it might be damaging to our gut health. Like even certain medications like, well, antibiotics or NSAIDs or even sometimes the proton pump inhibitors. You might be in a situation where you're getting frequent infections. Let's say.

It might be a recurrent sinus infection or a bladder infection or. I've seen some patients where it seems that infections go all over the place. First you might have a scalp skin infection and then a vaginal infection and then a sinus infection. And next thing you know, you're like, oh, my gosh, I'm in antibiotics again and again and again. And it feels like you're in this broken record. But actually, a lot of what we do is help you to manage those infections without having to need antibiotics again. Right. So we can break that pattern and go, hey, let's help your immune system fend off the infections and even fend off bacteria without. With using, say, herbal approaches and nutrients. Right. And so then you don't have to be constantly exposed to these substances that keep damaging your digestion and setting you up for autoimmunity.

Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. And those medications are so prevalent just in our culture that people so easily reach for them. You know, they're like, oh, yeah, I'm just gonna pop a few, you know, Advil. It'll be fine. You know, but you're like, no.

Like, for menstrual cramps or for. Sometimes people are getting headaches all the time, and they're like, oh, I just have to keep taking. Yeah, Advil or Tylenol or, you know, and you're just like, oh, my gosh. Next thing you know, then. Or say you're getting a little bit of reflux, and you're like, oh, I'll just take this antacid for a little while. But it ends up kind of perpetuating these digestive issues, like leaky gut and imbalanced gut bacteria that ends up setting you up for autoimmunity down the road. So it's being able to kind of. Yes, it's important to address if you have heartburn or if you have pain. We want to address it. We don't. We're not telling you to not address it. We're saying, let's just address it in a way where it's not causing other damage. Right?

Yeah, no, for sure. Like, if you're. You're taking these medications, you know, you want to ask yourself, like, well, why? There's a reason why you're taking. If you're taking NSAIDs, you have muscle pain or you have these period cramps. Well, why? There's a reason why. And I feel like when you kind of look at those reasons and really do some research and digging into your own health, then you'll find that there's other solutions than just these medications. You can actually get to, like, why am I having these period pains? And then you can address it. Like, with herbs, you do acupuncture, like, healing your gut, like you said, there's just. It opens up, like, a whole new world of things you can do to, like, help heal yourself. And like you said, it then puts you back. You know, you feel empowered, like, oh, like, I can do this. I can heal my own body.

Your body is really just Asking for the right kind of help. And instead of, yeah, using a medication that is almost like a band aid or quick fix, temporary fix, let's actually give your body what it needs. Is it. Are you having reflux because you're eating something that triggering the reflux? Even gluten, for example, often I find it causes reflux. So do we need to do a food panel? Is it that maybe you're not having enough protein with your meals to help the sphincter prevent reflux? So we start to think it through, right? Like, what's happening here on a daily basis that's setting you up for this? And the thing is, I think so much of time when we're so stressed and we're in our busy lives, right, we're trying to work, we're trying to be parents, we're trying to get projects, and we keep putting ourselves on the back burner, right? So we just have to. We're like, go, oh, I just need a quick fix because I got my period and I got to deal with the pain. Or I get a reflux and I got to take this. So you're trying to keep up on this hamster wheel of life, right? And next thing you know, you're like, oh, how did autoimmunity happen? Well, it's because your body was dealing with it for all that time period. And so I think it also with healing autoimmunity, it really begs us to look at our lifestyle a bit differently and say, hey, what do I need to do? To just take a minute and take a breath and be like, what do I need to do differently in my schedule so that I have time to listen to my body give it the healing it needs, Take breaks, whether that's on the weekend or even throughout the day. Like, I've been hearing more and more patients who are working from home. They're doing zoom meetings all day, and they never taken a break.

It's like we lost track of the fact that as humans, we actually need breaks during the day. Right. We need not just to run to the bathroom too, but, like, to actually. Right. I mean, I think this is a good lesson for us as practitioners, too. We have to build in our breaks to get some food and actually eat it in a calm way and take some breaths and actually allow our bodies to do digestive functioning in a healthy way and to do anti stress or de stress a little bit before we go back to working again. Do you find out with your patients that that's common too?

Yeah, I tell them you have to make it a conscious effort, you know, like, you have to schedule these things and, you know, you have to really plan. You know, initially, I find that it's hard for some of them. You know, it starts bringing up some things, like even like emotional things, like guilt or, you know, things like that that we have to, like, work through. But it's so important because, you know, like you said, your body can either tell you in a very gentle way or it's just going to knock you the F out and make you rest. You know.

It'S going to start it very, like, subtle, like, hey, we need to take a break, like, I'm kind of tired or it's just going to knock you out, you know, you're going to get sick or something, you know. And I think we learned that a lot in like, naturopathic medicine and even in, like Chinese medicine that, like, when you start suppressing these symptoms, you know, these signals from your body telling you what it needs with either medication or just. Just, you know, ignoring it, that it's gonna resurface somewhere, you know, some way, you know, whether that's physically, mentally, emotionally, like, it's gonna come back up, you know, and it's gonna come up when you, like, either if you get sick, like with autoimmune disease or even like during the healing process too, you know, old things can start coming back up, which is really interesting.

Yeah, I think it's just.

Go ahead.

Oh, no, I was just gonna say I think it's a lesson for all of us, like, you know, like myself included should just really listen to your body and pay attention to what it needs. And I feel like with my patients, I think they get better and better with that.

No, it's. It's. It's so true. It's. It really. That's why I say it's like the autoimmunity is giving us an opportunity to relook at our. How we're doing our lives and our schedules and taking care of ourselves. And it's also a lot of times, once person has an autoimmune diagnosis, these same things are what they find can cause a flare. Right. So sometimes you get your autoimmunity to calm down, but you might go through periods where the symptoms flare or the antibodies flare. And when we dig deep and we go, okay, why did it flare? It's often some of these same factors. Just when the stress is higher and maybe your diet shifted or maybe you came down with an infection that kind of got your immune system off, acted up, or you had to take a medication that threw things off a little bit. You know, as soon as, right. As soon as the system just gets a little bit out of balance, then boom, the autoimmunity can flare again. And so part of it is becomes really listening to that, right? Like really starting to learn from, hey, what was it that caused that? What can I do differently in the future to try to prevent that or to deal with it differently so that it doesn't have to cause a flare?

Yeah, no, totally. And I feel like that's, you know, that's kind of a goal that I want to get my patients towards so that when they do have a flare or something happens, you're not like, oh my gosh, like, where did this come from? You know, I have no idea what I did. You know, and then they get frustrated or confused and, you know, upset. But, you know, once you figure out what your triggers are and what causes these things, and when you have a flare, you're like, oh, it was because, like, I did this or it was probably because I ate that, you know, and so it's like it puts you back in control of your body and it doesn't feel like this thing that it has its own mind.

No, it's so, it's so true.

It makes a difference, right?

Instead of something that's taking over your body, you get to be the one who does, who gets to decide, hey, oh, I see where I can choose differently. And now you're the one in control of your health and your body. And even when it comes to, I'm curious if you see this too. I'm seeing patterns with autoimmunity where sometimes it's, yes, there may be some dietary factors or like we talked about, sometimes disruptions to the gut microbiome, but also can be from toxin exposures like mold toxins or even for metal exposure or other types of toxins like flame retardants and plastic. So sometimes it's from these toxin exposures that it overwhelms our immune system too.

Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. Toxins are huge. And it's not like our world is getting less toxic.

We're actually getting more toxic. And a lot of these toxins can accumulate in our body, in our foods and things like that. So I think just being more aware of, of your environment and knowing if any of these toxins affect you can also play a huge role in your autoimmunity and flare ups and things like that.

And that's where, you know, we, we.

Have so many tools again. Available to us, whether it's testing for these different toxin exposures or. And then being able to guide you to carefully and effectively get the toxins out of your body and detoxify.

Because it's, you know, I mean, you.

Can read so many different things online, right, about detoxing. But that's one thing that we're trained in as naturopathic doctors is how to identify the toxins and really help people detoxify safely and effectively. Right.

So, yes, yeah, totally. Super important. Yeah, detoxifying for sure. And that's something that I usually encourage patients to do as well, too, and to make sure everything's all open before we start detoxing. But yeah, it's another great thing that your body does. Your body naturally does it. And so, you know, we can focus your, like, detox system and everything that's involved towards these things. Like if it's mold or, you know, a specific toxin that we need to get rid of or heavy metal or anything like that.

No, and you're making a good point. I think you're. Well, you're referring to like, when we think about detoxification, one major place is through the bowel movement or through stool. And if a person's constipated, those toxins are not getting out. So if we start trying to detoxify and it's just stuck, they're going to get reabsorbed. So it's such a good point. If you have constipation, the first thing we're going to do is help get your bowels moving regularly. And then two, just making sure you're drinking good water. Right. That's what you mean by just like, we got to get that things moving and open and flowing so the toxins can get out of you instead of just recirculating.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that's another thing good about naturopathic medicine is like, you know, people are like, I want to detox. It's like, okay. But it's like, you're right. We have to be like, well, maybe we have to take like two steps back because you're actually not pooping. And we can't really start detox until you're pooping.

Exactly. So then we sometimes we have to be like, okay, here's where we start. And sometimes it's, you know, maybe someone listening is like, that's what I need is someone who can tell me where to start. Because it can feel overwhelming. Right. You might be reading online and be like, okay, I understand. I need to do these Things. But how am I. What order should I do it and where do I begin? And even then, like, even something as simple as getting the bowels moving regularly, there's a. There's a lot of different possible ways to do that. And so one thing that we can do, and as naturopathic doctors, is help you figure out what's the best thing for your body, which doses work best for you, which substances. And so you can really learn your body and learn what it responds to and learn what's going to be your best solution ongoing, instead of just a quick solution. That's not really a good solution.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that's. You bring up such a good point. Because that's something I have to remind myself too. Like, because even in and like natural medicine, we can get to like, oh, we just want the quick fix, you know, we want like the quick herb that like just gets it and does it and does it, you know, but it's like, oh, well, at least like, you know, we gotta heal our body. And sometimes that takes time, you know, and we need to again, figure out, like, why are you not pooping?

I love that Dr. Nicole's always asking why.

She's like, just keep asking why. And it's true. Because the question why helps us. Us look deeper.

Right.

And go, let's understand what's really going on here before we just make a quick decision. Let's really understand what we're trying to do first and then make a decision about how we're going to handle it.

Yeah. And it's because it's like you said, you know, when you first start looking into these things, it can be so overwhelming. You know, just even something basic like that, like how to naturally, like how constipation. You're just like, what, like you go on the Internet and. And it's just crazy. And then autoimmunity is just like I was overwhelmed, like, looking for things that autoimmunity. So I can imagine like a patient trying to look that stuff up, you know, But I feel like once you can get down to like these very more specific things, I think it makes it feel like a bit more simple, like you can actually do it. Like, you know, we can just take it step by step. And then I think it makes it easier for patients to then like, do and get these responses, results, you know, and start improving their health, like naturally.

Yeah, it's so true. It's such a good point. Oh, my gosh. Well, thank you so much. I mean, this. I think it's so fun. Right. As even for us with each other, about what we know, what we, what we see and how we think about these things. And it is. It's so rewarding to be able to help people. And I'm so glad that more and more people are starting to think about and want to address autoimmunity in this way because it's. There is so much we can do. And you and I get to see these cases where people feel better and their autoantibodies decrease or go away, and they can then move forward in their lives in such a different way without feeling like they're attached to this disease condition and it's determining their future. You know, you want to be able to determine your future, and that's possible. Right? It's. Any people realize, oh, I'm willing to make some diet changes. I'm willing to. To do some gut healing or take some supplements, some herbs or nutrients if that means you can have freedom from these health issues. Right. It's worth it.

Yeah, no, it's totally worth it. And it's just been so much fun. I'm so happy you have this podcast too, because it's really feel like educating people about what we do. Like what we really do.

Yeah.

Yeah. And so thank you. But thank you for having me. I love it. I love talking with you too. Like, I love talking as naturopathic doctors. And yeah, I had a lot of fun.

So glad, Nicole. Now please tell everybody how they want to. I mean, I definitely. Anyone listening? I definitely encourage you to go on to Nicole's Instagram because she's constantly just sharing great tidbits and encouraging you and you're going to learn from every post plus on her website. So tell us. It's Dr. Fujiyamand.com is your website, right?

Yes, that is my website. Yep. And my Instagram is just rnicolend and you can connect with me there. And then I have an email list as well too, and you can find that link on my IG as well.

Okay, very good. All right, so Dr. Nicole nd as in naturopathic doctor.

Yes.

Oh my gosh, it's awesome. I'm so glad for everything you're sharing. So please everyone who you know wanting to learn more about how to help with autoimmunity, definitely connect with her. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us. You know, based on this conversation we're having here, I'll put the links down below as well so everybody can find you, Nicole. And again, thank you. Oh, my gosh thank you for all the people that you're helping and for all the information that you're sharing.

Thank you.

Thank you. Tim Go.

This is a lot of fun. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to how humans heal.

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